Hey everyone!

I know this chapter has taken forever to get here. My humblest apologies. I started school, and I've been preoccupied with that and my job. But I caught the writing bug again and needed to get this out. I'm hoping to edit and expound on previous chapters, so be looking out for that. Of course, my main focus is the next chapters. I am hoping it won't take me so long. I know where the story is going, but it's a matter of finding time to write.

Thank you for all your kind comments and for sticking around! Also, did you see the trailer for the new movie 65 with Adam Driver? It's like the Ben Solo movie we never got! I'm so excited about it.

Please enjoy!

Rey watched her tears fall and wet the sand below her, bent down on her hands and knees, shaking and sobbing. Overwhelmed by the sudden abandonment, the trauma from her childhood flooded her nervous system — shutting down her rational thoughts — and it seemed her strength had left her all at once. In this state of weakness, all she could do was keep her eyes fixated on the ground. A sudden gust of wind smoothed the sand — and took with it the evidence of Rey's sadness — and suddenly, she was brought back to reality.

She needed to find out exactly what happened. It didn't make any sense why Ben and Chewie would leave. Something must have happened.

Wiping away the remainder of her tears with the back of her hand, Rey stood on her feet and investigated the horizon. It was almost night. The last flicker of light was painting Tatooine's sky in oranges and pinks. Soon, it would be too dark to navigate.

Rey raised her hand to the sand and watched as the particles danced into the air twirling around and around again, creating a small tornado under her control. Satisfied, she let go of the particles, and they fell abruptly to the ground. She couldn't explain why her abilities had failed her before.

Strange…

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and communed with the Force. She searched into the galaxy, looking for any hint, any feeling of Ben or Chewie. But mostly, she looked for Ben. She looked for that familiar spark that lit up in her chest when she was near him. She reached out for his consciousness, willing it to connect with hers.

"Be with me…" She breathed.

Minutes passed… Rey felt the sand shift beneath her. She felt the decay of dead creatures even deeper below that. She felt the air wrestle and settle in odd places. Beyond the planet, she felt the stillness of space and the smooth sailing of spaceships. She saw parties, battles, and those things in between.

But in the stillness and chaos of space, Ben was nowhere to be found.

She pulled away forcefully and growled in frustration.

"Abandoned on another sandy, barren planet!" Rey kicked the sand. She then took her bag from off her back and rummaged inside it to find her holoprojector. Poe had given it to her a while back. She now needed it to contact him on Ajan Kloss for a ride off Tatooine.

She winced… she was not ready for any I told you so from Poe or, especially, Finn. But what other choice did she have?

Poe POV

The holoprojector on Poe's desk began to beep. It was hidden beneath maps and tools, and Poe had to frantically throw things around before he finally discovered it. He quickly answered it.

"Rey?" Poe asked, his dark eyebrows raised in confusion and surprise.

Rey's holographic image flickered for a moment, and her distorted voice answered, "Poe, this is going to be difficult to explain, but I need you to come to get me on Tatooine."

"What happened to the Falcon? And Ben and Chewie?" Poe questioned with burning curiosity.

"I don't know what happened. I went out into the desert to bury Luke and Leia's sabers here on the Lars' moisture farm. I was communing with them, and the next minute, the Falcon was flying into space. I tried to stop it with the Force, but…"

Poe tried to contain his rising anger "Did Ren turn on you?"

"I don't think so…" Rey winced again and took a deep breath, "I would have known. Something is wrong."

Dameron caught on to the concern dripping in Rey's voice, "Don't worry, I'll grab Finn and BB-8, and we will be there soon! Stay at the farm." Poe turned with the holoprojector in hand and almost hung up but then realized his pending mistake, "And send me your coordinates!"

Rey's POV

After Rey hung up with Poe, she turned to enter the atrium of the moisture farm again. Before she reached the entrance, she heard a blaster go off far into the distance. She ducked out of instinct and turned quickly to determine the blast's location.

Soon she heard more blaster fire in quick succession. They were streaks in a progressively dark horizon.

Acting in swiftness, Rey activated her lightsaber and ran towards the action.

Heavy breathing, legs aching, straining desperately. The light of her saber assisted her in seeing what was ahead.

She saw silhouettes of wreckage and the sharp, dark outlines of two contending figures.

Before she had reached them, they resorted to hand-to-hand combat. The larger figure overcame, the smaller one, throwing them to the ground.

"You really are a traitor." A woman's voice was heard from the sandy floor. Her head raised to meet her attacker's gaze.

The large figure responded in a deep, thickly accented voice. "No, Ceindel, you are the traitor. You could have had a place at my side, but instead, you chose cowardice and death." And with those final words, the large man lifted a blaster and shot it directly at the woman. Her face fell into the sand. She was dead.

"No!" Rey shouted as she finally interrupted the situation. She ran at the man with her saber in hand. The man moved swiftly in alarm and shot his weapon in her direction. She easily deflected the blasts until she was nearly upon him. Before she could make any damaging strike, the man put his hands in the air.

"Whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute there, girlie!"

Rey stopped and outstretched her lightsaber to the man's throat. "Who are you? Why did you kill that woman?" Rey's eyes emitted an outrage stronger than the effulgent glow of her saber. She was face-to-face with a large Weequay man who was dressed in pirate garb. She recognized it well, as her path had crossed with the same scum when she was a scavenger on Jakku.

"Captain Tokk Larsalk." the man said tersely.

Rey's eyes floated to the dead woman called Ceindel. She was a Weequay just as the coward who had killed her. She looked around further to see the remains of a couple of speeders and another unconscious figure.

"Who is over there?" Rey interrogated.

Larsalk followed her gaze, his arms still raised in surrender, "That would be Crejwusa. He was Ceindel's partner. A Twi-lek. He died in the crash."

Rey looked back to Larsalk, her eyes still full of fire, "What happened here?"

Larsalk stared back at the Jedi and began to explain, "I am the quartermaster on a ship called the Deviant. A pirate ship." Larsalk grimaced in anticipation of retaliation, but Rey waited for him to continue, "Our captain, Captain Krag, was killed by a squirming worm called Ral Vex. Vex led a mutiny against the Captain, and he and his followers here were running away from me and the remaining loyal crewmembers as we pursued them for their betrayal."

Skeptically, Rey held fast to her saber, "Where is Vex now?"

"I've no idea." Larsalk scanned the wreckage again, "I found three speeders, but the only culprits with them were these two traitors."

"Why should I believe your story?" There was no reason to ever trust a pirate. They were always looking for ways to get rich, no matter if it meant lying, stealing, or even killing. Rey knew this very well.

Larsalk chuckled, which only caused Rey to raise her saber closer to his throat. He squirmed his face away and settled down, "Why does it matter to you if my story is true? What does it have to do with you? This is pirate business."

"I…" Rey was taken aback. Did this have anything to do with her? It depended on where Laralk's buddy Vex was. Should she tell this pirate the truth, especially considering the risk that he was deceiving her? She weighed the risks and then decided she had the tools and resources to find the truth.

It wasn't his business, that much was sure. Whether or not it was her business was left for her to discover.

… but he was still a pirate. And involved in this mystery.

Rey stepped away and brought her saber with her, drawing it to her side. Her stance suggested a staunch wariness. "You've disrupted this peaceful farmland with your abhorred spectacle. As a Jedi and an agent of peace, I can't allow you to run free. You are involved in unlawful activity in a universe that is still healing from First Order oppression. I'm taking you into custody." Rey's jaw was taut with determination, and her eyes conveyed a stubborn seriousness.

It was this tense guardedness that served her well when Larsalk moved to aim his blaster at her. In one swift, coordinated move, Rey sliced the blaster in half and pushed the large man on his back using the force. The sand blew up in a cloud when he landed and pushed outwards when Larsalk's breath was pushed out of his body. He groaned in pain. Rey moved to stand above him and aimed her saber again at his face.

"Try that again, and you'll regret it," Rey smirked dangerously and calculated, she commanded, "You're going to help me find your comrade."